Xbox Live Changes, Is It Too Little Too Late?

Okay, I’ve never been the biggest fan of Xbox Live but I’ve always admitted that the party system on the 360 and the multiplayer was better than what the PS3 had to offer.

That isn’t the case anymore and now PS+ is mandatory for normal multiplayer on the PS4 system, with this comes the much appreciated party system and PS+ games library.

However, I among a lot of others have always wondered why Microsoft put certain apps and features behind a pay wall that stopped often free services being used by normal gamers.

I haven’t always had Xbox Gold, and often it has been frustrating trying to use your Xbox as the all-powerful one device it’s often advertised as, when you must have another subscription to give you access to free to play games or catch up services.

Now, the news that MS have changed their minds and will be making certain services available outside of the pay wall of a gold subscription is slowly becoming common knowledge. But, is it enough to buy back trust and respect that has for many years, been thrown out of the window by the big MS, simply because there wasn’t any money to be made by respecting its customers.

Sony have always offered these services for free, at no extra cost, just as every other platform on the planet has done. Now that the PS4 is taking the initial lead in the next-gen race, MS suddenly decide its time to match Sony’s generous offers and make some changes to the Xbox Live service. Sorry, but I know both of these are businesses out to make money, but are gamers really about to trust MS more now that they have changed their draconian minds again? MS most likely see this as a goodwill gesture to the fans, rather than a responsible thing to do.

On top of this you have the news that Sony bosses are taking up to 50% pay cuts to help the company re-balance its finances.

So not only is Sony in a worse financial position than MS, but they haven’t used all the possible tactics available to them to make money, even if it would have meant disrespecting its fans, while having sensible and responsible bosses who should probably be running our banks instead of entertainment companies.

Sony have shown they are gamers, they have shown respect from the beginning of the PlayStation era, even with the original PS3 price tag which still resulted in Sony making a loss on each system, and they have now shown they have the balls to stand up to MS and don’t mind being paid less to do it. Microsoft have done these changes to help sell Xbox Ones, it’s that simple, as is the change of stance on Kinects being bundled with each console. MS have used us, abused us and now that a more powerful alternative is available, they want to woo us back.

Sorry MS, you had your chance to do this when the PS3 started taking off and offered great free services. You decided to keep the paychecks instead of being reasonable. Your loss MS. I’m happy being with a company who at least gives me a reasonable service with the console for free. And if the rumours that free to play games will still need gold is correct, well MS, I think you obviously have your head so far up your arse that you don’t really care what happens at the end of this generation.

About The Author

Alex was born a geek to a geek family, so he has a passion for anything sci-fi related. He runs AGR in his spare time. Gaming, reading and writing sci-fi stories means he has very little spare time, though he makes it a point to get back to every comment, if possible.